Owing to the increased feeding-in of electricity from renewable energy sources (solar energy, wind energy, etc), the problem of maintaining the grid stability of electricity transmission or supply grids has come into ever sharper focus in the energy industry. In order to be able to ensure stability in these grids, the electrical power fed into these grids must at all times be matched by a power consumption which is comparable with the amount fed in. This balance of supply and consumption is not always ensured in particular owing to the high fluctuations in the energy fed in from renewable energy sources. Thus, for example, fluctuations in the frequency or voltage behavior in the electricity transmission or supply grids manifest as deviations with respect to the active and reactive power ratios which also vary over time.
If an increase takes place in the electrical energy fed in from renewable energy sources, for example owing to suitable weather conditions, an excess of power may occur in the grids, similar to times when there is a low load in the grid. In order to then maintain the grid stability, this excess electrical energy needs to be removed in a suitable fashion.
Conventional approaches in the energy industry for reducing excess power in the electricity supply and/or transmission grids are based on diminishing the power output from power plants which are operating, for example fossil fuel power plants which are switched to partial load or are even operated in stand-by mode. The power supplied to the grids can be adapted to the power demand by virtue of limiting this power output.
However, it is a disadvantage of such solutions known from the prior art that it is not possible to make any direct usage of the available energy given the prevailing over-supply of electrical power. As a result, the grid is stabilized with just a certain delay. This delay may, however, sometimes last such a long time that safe and stable grid operation is not sufficiently possible.